Music bodies acting ahead of crucial Article 13 vote

Jul 04, 2018

The European Parliament will very soon vote on the EU’s draft Copyright Directive, and music bodies are leading the charge of creative industries in urging politicians to support the proposed legislation (specifically its Article 13, which focuses on the obligations of online platforms around copyrighted content being uploaded by their users).

The atmosphere is tense, and the lobbying process reopened some of the deep divisions between rightsholders and large technology companies (Google in particular). As Music Ally reports, from the music side, this week’s lobbying is focused around two points: convincing politicians of Article 13’s necessity on one hand, and criticising Google’s lobbying on the other.

The latter is causing particular anger within the rightsholder community. For instance, PRS for Music CEO Robert Ashcroft in a blog post wrote:

The Internet giants and the consumer organisations they fund have whipped up a social media storm of misinformation about the proposed changes in order to preserve their current advantage.

At a time when European politicians seem to be leaning towards more regulation (and criticism) of big, American technology companies, the rightsholders’ arrows appear well-aimed. Tomorrow’s vote will tell us whether they have hit their mark.